Article December 2, 1939 Issue

Our Duty to Our Leader

LAURA EDITH SUTHERLAND

In the Manual of The Mother Church, under the heading "Alertness to Duty" (Article VIII, Section 6), Mary Baker Eddy has given us this By-Law: "It shall be the duty of every member of this Church to defend himself daily against aggressive mental suggestion, and not be made to forget nor to neglect his duty to God, to his Leader, and to mankind. By his works he shall be judged,—and justified or condemned." As the spiritual import of this rule is grasped, and its relation to the prosperity of the Christian Science movement and our own progress unfolds in our thought, we realize the need for growth in appreciation of the place of our Leader in God's plan.

In this rule, as in others made by her, Mrs. Eddy has foreseen our need and supplied it. She has pointed out the path by which she was divinely led to the discovery and founding of Christian Science, the way all must follow in order to value her work rightly, and to benefit from it. From childhood she grew in godly qualities of thought, until at length she was enabled to receive by inspiration the spiritual import of the Scriptures. Thus came the great discovery of the allness of God and the consequent nothingness of evil. As the understanding of God continued to unfold to our beloved Leader, she completed through divine guidance her foundational and protective work for the Christian Science movement.

Mrs. Eddy recognized that Jesus manifested Christ—the emanation of the one Mind. She realized that it was to the Christ, as revealed in divine Science, that Jesus referred when he said to his disciples, "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever." In this recognition Mrs. Eddy appreciated, more than anyone else since Jesus' time, his divine commission. It is important to recall that when in the third century of the Christian era, the appreciation of the mission of Christ Jesus became confused, darkened, and personalized, the spiritual meaning of his teaching was almost entirely lost. Thought had become so material as to lose the qualities of spiritual-mindedness essential to appreciate the divine message.

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